How impressive is this?

I've heard of people staying on their hands for 30 minutes, switching back and forth between hands, but this seems ridiculous, especially how static he stays. How impressive is this? Thanks!

Its very impressive. He seems to have a very light frame, but it 4 minutes is serious business. I would not be surprised if he has been on his arms since he was quite young judging from that stability and time. I cant hold for much more than 2 min. I saw another clip of him with a chinese coach and from what i understand they tend to do a lot of endurance. What i find strange is that when he falls he seems to have very little control outside of his alignment. When i start to get tired I move a lot but I can go very far outside my alignment and catch back for a while before falling. Inspiring stuff nonetheless!

Awesome answer Handbalancer. Thanks so much for all the input you do on this forum, I've learned quite a lot looking at your post history!

What's that stretch the guy does in the background?

Excellent video.  

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

can one arm handstand be used in gymnastic competitions like in floor routines?? i think that OAHS is an awsome skill 

Yes but you receive no additional credit. 

Bipocni said:

What's that stretch the guy does in the background?

he is using the wall to push into his pike stretch. I tried it and found it really helpful. because you can make sure your back is straight before pushing. it works even better if you put something heavy in front of your feet so your body doesn't move. and if you hold a yoga block in your hand it lets you push off even more.

dam I cant wait till I can even balance a regular handstand

looks like a lot of fun (4 min 1 arm - not so much haha)

Handbalancer said:

What i find strange is that when he falls he seems to have very little control outside of his alignment. When i start to get tired I move a lot but I can go very far outside my alignment and catch back for a while before falling.

Do you think this is because you learned how to hold a handstand for time before you learned correct alignment?  I remember you mentioned that you built up a lot of strength fighting to save your handstands.  If you learn handstands with correct alignment from the beginning, would you have less control once you lose it?

Its probably mostly because he must be pretty tired by then. He locks out super well and I suppose he keeps it until he cant anymore. He can do full flags and all that with ease. Getting endurance this good would take a long long time. Even for a performing handbalancer it is not necessary though its pretty damn good to have. From where I am now it would take substantial work to get anywhere close to that time.

With time you learn to control your mistakes because you have good awareness and surplus strength. Point is that you need to learn to control outside of alignment, but most of this is building the mindset because its hard to make drills for. You will either way make more than enough mistakes on your journey so the best thing is to try to always fight for your balance and make the falling worth something.